N.lA/.U/fli-KEH     -   ^PK-/O0 


ADDRESS 


OF 


Hon.  J.  L  M.  CURRY,  LL  D., 


DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE 


Association  of  Confederate  Veterans, 

Richmond,  Va.,  July  i,  1896. 


B.  F.  Johnson  Publishing  Company. 
Richmond,  Va. 


The  Association  at  Houston,  Texas,  in  1895,  recommended  that  J.  L.  M. 
Curry  be  invited  to  deliver  an  address  at  its  next  annual  reunion,  on 
the  subject  of  Slavery,  Nullification  and  Secession,  with  special  reference 
to  the  attitude  of  the  people,  North  and  South,  to  these  three  leading 
questions  of  American  history. 

Immediately  after  the  address  was  delivered,  on  motion  of  Judge 
George  L.  Christian,  it  was 

Resolved,  That  the  hearty  thanks  of  these  Confederate  Veterans  be  ten- 
dered Comrade  Curry  for  his  able,  eloquent  and  valuable  historic  ad- 
dress ;  that  it  be  printed  in  our  minutes,  and  that  the  Adjutant  be  re- 
quested to  circulate  at  least  10,000  copies  of  it. 

This  resolution  received  the  heartiest  approval  from  the  convention, 
and  was  adopted  amid  much  enthusiasm. 


ADDRESS. 

Comrades  : 

We  meet  under  auspicious  circumstances.  As 
time  rolls  on  our  record  becomes  brighter,  and  there  is  a 
readier  and  more  general  acknowledgment  of  our  deeds,  mo- 
tives, principles.  The  erection  of  a  Confederate  monument  in 
Chicago,  and  the  spirit  and  utterances  of  the  meeting  in 
Chickamauga,  give  us  hope  that  the  resentments  and  animosi- 
ties and  prejudices  of  the  war  are  being  effaced  by  healthier 
opinions  and  actions,  and  that  reconstruction  is  not  confined 
to  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  The  visits  of  northern 
governors  and  troops  to  the  Atlanta  Exposition,  the  display  of 
products  in  friendly  rivalry,  the  profuse  and  cordial  hospitality 
to  visitors,  indicate  subsidence  of  antagonisms  and  prevalence 
of  reconciliation  and  brotherhood.  France  and  Germany  keep 
alive  animosities,  pile  up  armaments,  prepare  for  conflict,  covet 
excuse  or  occasion  for  letting  loose  the  dogs  of  war,  usque  ad 
internecionem.  We  advocate  peace  and  friendship,  would 
change  alienations  to  feelings  of  kindness,  and  would  regard 
renewal  of  strife  as  an  irreparable  calamity  to  both  sections. 
This  assembly  of  war-scarred  veterans  has  no  such  purpose  as 
recital  of  wrongs  endured,  or  indulgence  in  vain  pride,  or  ego- 
tistic laudations.  We  are  not  here  in  malice  or  in  mischief,  in 
disaffection  or  in  rebellion,  nor  to  keep  alive  sectional  hates, 
nor  awaken  revenge  for  defeat,  nor  kindle  disloyalty  to  the 
Union.  We  are  not  hyphened  Americans — Irish-Americans, 
German-Americans — but  Americans,  pure  and  simple,  without 
prefix  or  condition.  If  anything  more  distinctive  be  required, 
we  are  Constitutional  Americans,  favoring  representative,  repub- 


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lican,  constitutional  governments.  We  come  together  for  no 
such  vain  purpose  as  to  revive  the  "  Lost  Cause,"  but  in  com- 
mon love  for  those  who  bore  the  conquered  banner. 

"Time  cannot  teach  forgetfulness 
When  grief's  full  heart  is  fed  by  fame." 

This  recognition  of  the  glorious  deeds  of  our  comrades  is 
perfectly  consistent  with  loyalty  to  the  flag  and  devotion  to  the 
Constitution  and  the  resulting  Union.  One  who  does  not  love 
his  family,  his  home,  cannot  love  his  country.  The  most  pre- 
cious recollections  attach  to  those  who  bequeathed  to  their  sur- 
vivors the  noblest  examples  of  devotion  to  liberty  and  truth  ; 
who  gave  attestations  of  their  convictions  by  grand  battles, 
numerous  victories;  by  unexampled  patience,  fortitude,  cour- 
age; by  daring  to  die  for  wife,  children,  home,  inherited  rights. 

If  ashamed  of  the  cause  for  which  Hampden  died  on  the 
field  of  honor,  or  Russell  perished  on  the  scaffold,  we  may 
blush  for  our  degeneracy.  The  world  is  richer;  humanity 
has  been  ennobled  by  Stuart,  the  Johnstons,  Jackson,  Hill,  Lee, 
by  our  private  soldiers,  our  more  heroic  women ;  and,  if  too 
cowardly  to  honor  them,  we  may  well  call  on  the  rocks  to  fall 
on  us,  and  hide  us  from  universal  scorn. 

While  the  late  Confederate  States  abide  with  knightly  fealty 
the  award  of  the  bloody  arbitrament  to  which  they  were  forced, 
none  more  cheerfulfy  than  these  veterans  recognize  the  courage 
and  prowess  of  antagonists,  and  that  the  prolonged  and  dubious 
strife  was  a  war  of  ideas,  in  which  each  army  signalized  its  con- 
secration to  principles,  as  each  understood  them.  We  claim  it, 
nevertheless,  as  a  right  and  a  duty  to  vindicate  our  comrades. 
An  effort  is  sometimes  made  to  paint  the  "  Lost  Cause  "  in  black- 
est colors,  to  sully  it  with  crimes  more  horrible  than  matricide; 
to  overwhelm  its  supporters  with  the  odium  and  infamy  of 
traitors.  Constitutional  and  organized  resistance  has  been  con- 
founded with  rebellion.     Lee  and  Jackson  are  no  better  than 


Catiline,  and  Davis  and  Stephens  and  Hunter  and  Lamar  and 
Yancey  and  Baldwin  and  Cobb  are  pilloried  with  Robespierre 
and  Arnold.  On  our  part  we  propose  to  keep  the  agreement 
entered  into  at  Appomattox  and  Durham's  Station,  and  to  pre- 
serve the  constitutional  Union  of  States,  leagued  for  purposes 
of  good  government.  We  wish,  nevertheless,  to  see  to  it  that 
our  children  do  not  grow  up  with  false  notions  of  their  fathers, 
and  with  disgraceful  apologies  for  their  conduct.* 

This  association,  at  its  last  meeting,  invited  me  to  deliver  an 
address  on  the  subject  of  "  Slaver}T,  Nullification,  and  Secession, 
with  special  reference  to  the  attitude  of  the  people,  North  and 
South,  to  these  three  leading  questions  of  American  history." 
The  subject  has  been  prescribed,  and  my  embarrassment  is  a 
wealth  of  material.     Inopem  me  copia  fecit. 

I.  Slavery. — Property  in  man  lias  existed  from  time  imme- 
morial. The  most  ancient  records  recognize  compulsory  human 
labor.  Slavery  existed  in  England,  at  common  law,  under  the 
name  of  villenage.  The  power  of  States,  the  position  of  nobles, 
the  fortunes  of  families,  have  been  accumulations  from  forced 
servitude.  After  the  treaty  of  Utrecht,  in  1713,  the  Crown  in 
council  submitted  to  the  twelve  judges  of  England  the  ques- 
tion, What  was  the  legal  status  of  the  negro  slaves  in  the  hands 
of  British  subjects?  The  response,  signed  by  Lord  Chief  Jus- 
tice Holt  and  nine  other  judges,  was:  "In  pursuance  of  His 
Majesty's  order  in  council,  we  do  humbly  certify  our  opinion 
to  be  that  negroes  are  merchandise."  In  many  ages  and 
countries,  under  patriarchal,  Jewish,  Christian  and  other 
forms  of  religion,  personal  servitude  has  been  the  lot  of  multi- 
tudes of  mankind.  Treaties,  international  law,  statutes,  de- 
crees of  councils  and  synods,  show  that  kings  and  people,  the 
Roman  Catholics,  and  ministers  and  members  of  other  religious 


*  For  the  speaker's  book,  "  The  Southern  States  in  Relation  to  the  Constitution  and 
the  Resulting  Union,"  mothers  of  Confederate  boys  not  unfrequently  have  written, 
''  May  God  bless  and  reward  you  for  your  defense  of  the  South!" 


4 

denominations,  regarded  the  possession  of  slave  property  as 
fully  compatible  .with  civilization  and  the  doctrines  of  the 
gospel.  (See  Letter  XVI.  of  Bishop  England  to  Hon.  John 
Forsyth.)  The  Christian  Educator,  published  by  the  Northern 
Methodist  Freedmen's  Aid  Society,  March,  1895,  says:  "There 
were  no  antagonisms  which  Garrison's  course  did  not  stir  up. 
His  little  office  in  the  third  story  of  the  building  then  known 
as  Merchants  Hall  in  Boston,  Harrison  Gray  Otis  described  as 
'an  obscure  hole.'  Edward  Everett  declared  on  the  floor  of 
Congress  about  that  time,  thus  expressing  the  dominant  opin- 
ion of  the  public  sentiment,  that  ' the  great  relation  of  servi- 
tude in  some  form  or  other,  with  greater  or  less  departure  from 
the  theoretic  equality  of  men,  is  inseparable  from  our  nature. 
Domestic  slavery  is  not,  in  my  judgment,  to  be  set  down  as  an 
immoral  and  irreligious  relation.  It  is  a  condition  of  life,  as 
well  as  any  other,  to  be  justified  by  morality,  religion,  and  in- 
ternational law.'  The  Rev.  Ralph  Randolph  Gurley,  secretary 
of  the  American  Colonization  Society,  f  expressed  the  senti- 
ments of  a  vast  majority  of  Northern  Christians '  when  he  said, 
The  African  in  this  country  belongs  by  birth  to  the  very 
lowest  station  in  society,  and  from  that  station  he  can  never 
rise,  be  his  talents,  his  enterprise,  his  virtues  what  they  may. 
Here,  therefore,  they  must  be  forever  debased  ;  more  than  this, 
they  must  be  forever  useless;  more  even  than  this,  they  must 
be  forever  a  nuisance,  from  which  it  were  a  blessing  for  society 
to  be  rid.'  Dr.  Wilbur  Fisk  declared  that  'the  general  rule  of 
Christianity  not  only  permits,  but  in  supposable  circumstances 
enjoins,  a  continuance  of  the  master's  authority.'  '  There  is,' 
said  the  editor  of  the  Christian  Advocate  and  Journal,  'no  ex- 
press prohibition  to  Christians  to  hold  slaves.'  A  New  Eng- 
land bishop  declared  that  the  right  to  hold  a  slave  is  founded 
on  this  rule:  'Therefore,  all  things  whatsoever  ye  would  that 
men  should  do  unto  you,  do  ye  unto  them. '" 

The  nations  of  Europe  engaged  in  the  slave  trade  and  Great 


Britain  took  a  share  in  it  as  early  as  Elizabeth's  reign.  By 
the  Asiento  Compact  granted  by  Spain,  she  made  a  breach  in 
the  Spanish  monopoly  and  was  allowed  to  furnish  America 
with  slaves,  engaging  to  furnish  annually,  for  thirty  years,  as 
many  as  4,800.  (Seeley's  Expansion  of  England,  133.)  No 
fewer  than  600,000  negroes  were  imported  into  Jamaica  during 
the  eighteenth  century.  Bancroft  estimates  that  England 
kidnapped  upwards  of  3,000,000  from  Africa  for  deportation 
to  the  various  American  colonies.  George  III.  regarded  slavery 
as  one  of  the  good  old  customs  consecrated  by  long  usage  and 
by  the  wisdom  of  his  ancestors.  (3  Aubrey's  Rise  and  Growth 
of  the  English  Nation,  187, 241.)  England  encouraged  the 
importation  of  slaves  into  her  American  colonies ;  prosecuted 
the  trade  two  hundred  and  seventy-four  years,  continuing  it 
for  nearly  thirty  years  after  its  abolition  in  this  country,  in  the 
course  of  which  time  5,000,000  were  caught  and  put  to  labor. 
(KettelFs  Southern  Wealth  and  Northern  Profits,  12.)  In  the 
last  century,  New  England  earned  a  large  portion  of  her  pro- 
perty by  the  slave  trade  and  continued  it  until  1807.  As 
Fuller  says,  "  Few  are  such  infidels  as  not  to  believe  doctrines 
which  make  for  their  own  profit."  The  towns  of  Newport, 
Bristol,  and  Providence  in  Rhode  Island ;  Stonington,  New 
London,  and  New  Haven,  in  Connecticut ;  Fall  River,  Boston, 
and  Salem  in  Massachusetts,  were  engaged  for  many  years  in 
carrying  rum  and  other  products  to  Africa  and  bringing  back 
negroes  as  return  cargoes.  The  largest  Guineamen  swarmed 
at  their  wharves,  and  these  towns  were  largely  built  up  by  the 
"accursed  traffic."  (Kettell,  18.)  In  1760  South  Carolina 
passed  an  act  to  prohibit  further  importation  of  slaves,  but 
Great  Britain  rejected  with  indignation  and  declared  that  the 
slave  trade  was  beneficial  and  necessary.  (See  Dew  on  Slavery.) 
Virginia  passed  as  many  as  twenty-three  acts  prohibiting  it. 
(1  Henry's  Henry,  54,  150 ;  Tyler's  Taney,  Appendix.)  The 
last  prayer  Virginia  ever  made  to  mortal  man  was  in  1772  to 


6 

George  III.  to  abolish  the  slave  trade  at  least  so  far  as  Virginia 
was  concerned.  In  1770,  the  King  of  Eugland  wrote  to  Gover- 
nor Botetourt,  commanding  him,  on  pain  of  his  highest  dis- 
pleasure, to  assent  to  no  law  by  which  the  importation  of  slaves 
would  be  in  any  respect  obstructed.  (3  Aubre}T,  241.)  Slavery 
was  imposed  against  the  earnest  and  oft-repeated  protest  of 
the  General  Assembly,  by  the  negations  of  the  King  of  Eng- 
land or  of  the  governors  on  the  laws  enacted  to  prohibit  the 
importation  of  or  traffic  in  slaves.  Within  two  years  after  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  almost  thirty  years  before  New- 
England  would  consent  to  forego  entirely  her  profits  by  allow- 
ing the  United  States  to  prohibit,  Virginia  set  the  seal  of  her 
reprobation  upon  this  opprobrium  of  modern  civilization,  and 
was  the  first  country  in  the  world  to  take  this  bold  step.  The 
preamble  of  her  Constitution  of  1776  complains  of  one  of  the 
acts  of  "  detestable  and  unsupportable  tyranny  "  of  the  King  of 
Great  Britain,  that  he  had  prompted  the  negroes  to  rise  in  arms, 
"those  very  negroes,  whom,  by  an  inhuman  use  of  his  negation 
he  had  refused  us  permission  to  exclude  by  law."  (1  Minor's 
Institutes,  161-164.)  In  the  very  first  session  held  under  the 
Republican  government,  the  Assembly  passed  a  law  for  the  per- 
petual prohibition  of  the  importation  of  slaves  and  to  remove 
"  all  restraints  which  inhibited  governors  assenting  to  such  laws 
as  might  check  so  very  pernicious  a  commerce."  (1  Tucker's 
Blackstone,  App.  51  Note.)  Several  other  colonies  sent  up 
petitions  similar  to  those  of  Virginia,  but  Great  Britain  refused 
to  abolish  the  traffic.  (Southern  Quarterly  Review,  April,  1 842.) 
No  Southern  colony  nor  State  ever  had  a  vessel  engaged  in  the 
slave  trade. 

In  the  convention  which  framed  the  Constitution,  a  committee 
reported  in  favor  of  limiting  the  slave  trade  to  1800.  An 
amendment  was  moved,  which  prevailed,  to  extend  it  to  1808, 
Massachusetts,  Connecticut  and  New  Hampshire  voting  for 
the  amendment,  and  Virginia  against  it.     (3d   Madison   pa- 


pers,  126.)  The  United  States  (2d  of  March,  1807,)  took  the 
initiative  in  abolishing  the  trade.  Slavery,  at  the  time  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  existed  in  all  the  States.  Afri- 
can slavery  has  shared  in  the  evolution  of  public  opinion  and 
social  institutions,  and  the  Christian  world  has  slowly,  but 
irrevocably,  arrived  at  the  great  truth  that  a  human  being 
with  will,  conscience,  intellect,  immortality,  is  entitled  to  per- 
sonal freedom,  to  the  products  of  his  labor,  to  unrestraint 
upon  his  fullest  moral  and  mental  development. 

The  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  adopted  in  1787, 
recognized  slavery  in  three  of  its  articles,  and,  for  many  years 
up  to  the  fierce  abolition  agitation  of  later  times,  there  was  no 
formidable  effort  for  its  removal. 

II.  Nullification. — A  clear  mandate  of  the  Constitution 
required  slaves  to  be  delivered  up  to  their  owners  when  escap- 
ing into  another  State.  Congress  discharged  its  duty  by 
passing  laws  to  carry  out  this  constitutional  obligation,  and 
every  President  complied  with  his  oath  to  see  the  law  duly 
executed.  A  sense  of  justice  and  of  mutual  interest  insured 
the  observance  of  the  fundamental  law  of  the  land.  Such 
Northern  expounders  of  the  Constitution  as  Story,  Webster, 
Pierce,  Woodbury,  Fillmore  and  Buchanan  affirmed  in  un- 
equivocal phrase  the  duty  of  the  government  to  carry  out  this 
solemn  engagement.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  Ohio,  Indiana, 
Illinois,  Oregon  and  Minnesota  enacted  laws  excluding  negroes 
from  their  territory,  and  their  right  to  do  so  was  not  disputed. 
(Kettell,  125-158.)  In  1853  Illinois,  under  the  leadership 
of  John  A.  Logan,  punished  a  negro  coming  into  and  remain- 
ing in  the  State  by  fine  and  sale,  and  this  law  was  not  repealed 
until  1865.  In  Prigg  v.  Pennsylvania  (16  Peters),  Justice 
Story,  in  rendering  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court,  said  : 
"From  1793,  the  date  of  the  passage  of  the  fugitive  slave  law, 
down  to  the  present  hour,  not  a  doubt  has  been  breathed  upon 
the  constitutionality  of  the  act,  and   every  executive   in  the 


Union  has  constantly  acted  upon  and  admitted  its  validity 
This  very  acquiescence,  under  such  circumstances,  of  the  high- 
est State  functionaries,  is  a  most  decisive  proof  of  the  univer- 
sality of  the  opinion  that  the  act  is  founded  in  a  just  con- 
struction of  the  Constitution,  independent  of  the  vast  influ- 
ence which  it  ought  to  have- as  a  contemporaneous  exposition 
of  the  provisions  by  those  who  were  its  immediate  framers  or 
intimately  connected  with  its  adoption." 

In  later  years,  under  the  new  mode  of  interpreting  our 
constitutional  compact  by  the  "moral  sense"  of  the  individual 
and  his  internal  convictions  of  a  "higher  law,"  sweeping 
away  legal  and  constitutional  barriers,  resistance  was  made 
by  men  and  families  and  secret  organizations.  This  hostility 
was  developed  in  party  platforms,  ecclesiastical  deliverances, 
congressional  speeches,  judicial  dicta  and  legislative  enact- 
ments. Impediments  were  thrown  in  the  way  of  the  return 
of  fugitives  from  labor  by  lawless  mobs.  The  Federal  gov- 
ernment and  the  owners  were  subjected  to  heavy  expense. 
Ten  sovereign-  States  interposed  to  punish  the  owners,  protect 
the  thieves  and  confiscate  the  property  of  citizens  of  sister 
States.  This  was  the  second  instance  of  flagrant  nullification 
of  the  plain  provision  of  the  Constitution  and  of  laws  made  in 
pursuance  thereof.  Maine,  Massachusetts,  Vermont,  New 
Hampshire,  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  New  York,  New  Jer- 
sey, Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michigan,  Minne- 
sota, and  beyond  all  the  rest,  Wisconsin,  filled  their  statute 
books  with  laws  adopted  ingeniously  and  effectively  for  the 
purpose  of  rendering  nugatory  the  express  covenants  of  the 
Constitution.  A  Northern  lawyer  says  the  decisions  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  Wisconsin  were  without  a  shadow  of  sup- 
port in  law,  and  can  only  be  defended  on  revolutionary 
grounds.  (Mich.  Lect.  282.)  These  nullifications  were  sum- 
mary, decisive,  revolutionary,  and  dissolved  the  Union  so  far  as 
the  clear  constitutional   mandate  was  concerned.     "  Without 


9 

this  mandate,"  said  Story  and  others,  "the  Union  would  never 
have  been  formed."  This  nullification  made  the  Federal  Union 
dissoluble  pro  tanto  at  the  pleasure  of  any  State,  or  any  depart- 
ment of  State.  (Id.  152,  207.)  These  precedents  were  never 
followed  in  the  South.  No  Southern  State  ever  nullified  a 
clause  of  the  Constitution  or  an  act  of  Congress. 

A  writer  in  a  Washington  (city)  newspaper  says  that 
"When  Calhoun  found  that  he  could  not  be  President  he  re- 
solved to  be  a  traitor.  He  invented  nullification."  The  nul- 
lification proposed  by  Mr.  Calhoun,  so  misrepresented,  so  de- 
liberately perverted  by  Northern  historians,  was  never  carried 
into  effect,  for  the  very  Congress  which  passed  the  force  bill  to 
coerce  South  Carolina  into  submission  to  the  tariffs  of  1828 
and  1832,  at  the  same  session  repealed  these  two  laws,  and 
Andrew  Jackson  signed  the  repeal,  and  thus  swept  from  the 
statute  book  what  South  Carolina  had  declared  to  be  uncon- 
stitutional and  void.  South  Carolina  succeeded  in  accom- 
plishing her  object  by  the  "Compromise  Act"  of  March,  1833, 
which  Mr.  Calhoun  supported.  She  accepted  tiie  concession 
and  repealed  the  ordinance  of  nullification.  The  conven- 
tion of  the  State  had  proposed  terms  of  compromise,  after 
which,  should  Congress  comply,  the  State  would  repeal 
the  nullification  ordinance.  The  "Force  Bill,"  rendered 
wholly  unnecessary  by  the  "  Compromise  Act,"  was  approved 
by  the  President  on  the  same  day  and  expired  by' its  own 
limitation  at  the  end  of  the  next  session  of  Congress.  (Con- 
gressional Debates,  Vol.  IX.,  part  2d,  Appendix  168,  Buchan- 
an's Administration  on  the  Eve  of  the  Rebellion,  pp.  92-93). 
The  nullification,  at  most,  was  intended  as  an  arrest  of  judg- 
ment, a  suspension  of  authority,  until  a  convention  of  the 
States,  the  creators  of  the  Union,  could  be  legally  summoned 
to  decide  whether  they  had  delegated  a  denied  power  to  their 
governmental  agent.  The  contention  was  as  to  the  right  of  a 
State,  in  its  most  solemn  form  of  action,  to  prevent  the  Constitu- 


10 

Hon  from  being  violated  by  the  general  government,  and  in  no 
sense  to  abrogate  the  Constitution  or  suspend  its  authority. 
The  State,  in  a  convention  of  the  sovereign  people  duly  and 
legally  assembled — the  Constitution-making  power  as  contra- 
distinguished from  the  law-making  power — declared  the  pro- 
tective tariff  laws  of  '28  and  '32  to  be  unconstitutional,  and, 
therefore,  null  anil  void  within  her  limits.  This  was  an  ap- 
peal to  the  paramount  power  in  our  system — the  convention 
of  the  States — to  declare  authoritatively  what  is  the  Constitu- 
tion, or  to  amend  its  defects.  The  utmost  extent  of  South 
Carolina  nullification  was,  that  a  State,  "  acting  in  its  sover- 
eign capacity  as  one  of  the  parties  to  the  constitutional  com- 
pact, may  compel  the  government  created  by  that  compact  to 
submit  a  question  touching  its  infraction  to  the  parties  who 
created  it." 

Ours  being  a  political  system  composed  of  the  separate 
governments  of  the  several  States,  and  of  one  common  govern- 
ment of  all  the  States,  called  the  Government  of  the  United 
States,  each  created  by  written  Constitutions,  those  of  the  par- 
ticular States  by  the  people  of  each  acting  separately,  and  that 
of  the  United  States  by  the  people  of  each  in  their  sovereign 
capacity?  but  acting  jointly  (Lamar's  Calhoun,  86;  1  Calhoun, 
111,  112,  167),  it  follows  from  the  relations  which  subsist  be- 
tween co-ordinate  governments,  that  a  mutual  negative  on  the 
part  of  each  is  necessary  to  protect  each  from  the  other,  and 
that  in  a  case  of  conflict  as  to  the  limits  of  their  respective 
authority,  neither  has  the  right  to  impose  by  force  its  decision 
on  the  other,  but  must  appeal  to  a  power  paramount  to  either, 
whose  decision  is  final  and  binding  on  both.  (1  Calhoun's 
Works,  236-244,  277.) 

This  doctrine  is  not  revolutionary  nor  anarchical,  and  if  the 
Constitution  be  the  basis  of  the  Federal  Union,  it  is  preserva- 
tive, and  the  sure  foundation  of  the  Union  itself.  There  never 
was  in  the  councils  of  the  country  a  purer  patriot,  or  one  more 


11 

disinterestedly  attached  to  our  political  institutions  and  the 
union  of  the  States,  than  Mr.  Calhoun.  The  nullification  of 
the  Northern  States  was  the  arbitrary  assumption  of  town 
meetings,  State  courts,  separate  legislatures,  to  determine 
finally  the  grants  of  the  Constitution,  and  to  exempt  their 
people  from  obligation  to  the  Federal  compact  and  to  make 
null  and  inoperative  the  laws  of  the  Union.  The  nullification 
by  communities,  courts,  legislatures  of  Northern  States,  was 
in  hot  haste  a  flagrant  violation  of  a  clear  provision  of  the 
articles  of  agreement  between  the  States,  and  there  was  not  a 
pretence  of  resort  to  a  prescribed  arbiter.  The  nullification  of 
South  Carolina  was  a  demand  for  stay  of  judgment  against 
robbery  of  her  people  through  bounties  or  protective  tariffs  un- 
constitutionally levied  for  favored  interests  of  the  North  until 
there  could  be  an  appeal  to  the  tribunal  provided  by  our 
sagacious  fathers  for  the  settlement  of  such  disputes.  The 
contrast  between  the  two  kinds  of  nullification  is  the  contrast 
between  order  and  anarchy,  between  law  and  misrule,  between 
calm  judgment  and  respect  for  the  rights  of  other  contracting 
parties,  and  passion,  prejudice, arrogant  assumption  of  absolute 
authority. 

The  Virginia  resolutions  of  '98,  declare  that  in  case  of  a 
dangerous  exercise  of  powers  not  enumerated  in  the  Constitu- 
tion, the  States,  who  are  parties  to  the  compact,  "  have  the 
right  and  are  in  duty  bound  to  interpose  for  arresting  the  pro- 
gress of  the  evil,  and  for  maintaining  within  their  respective 
limits  the  authorities,  rights,  and  liberties  appertaining  to 
them."  The  Kentucky  resolutions  of  '99  affirm  that  each 
State  reserved  to  its  own  self-government  the  residuary  mass 
of  undelegated  powers,  and  that  "each  party  (State)  has  an 
equal  right  to  judge  for  itself  as  well  of  infractions  as  of  the 
mode  and  measure  of  redress."  Madison  in  his  report,  as 
adopted  by  the  Virginia  Legislature,  said:  "The  States,  being 
the  parties  to  the  constitutional  compact,  and  in  their  sovereign 


12 

capacity,  it  follows  of  necessity  that  there  can  be  no  tribunal 
above  their  authority  to  decide  in  the  last  resort  whether  the 
compact  made  by  them  be  violated,  and,  consequently,  that, 
as  parties  to  it,  they  must  themselves  decide  in  the  last  resort 
such  questions  as  may  be  of  sufficient  magnitude  as  require 
their  interposition."  As  said  our  great  statesman,  "Language 
cannot  be  more  explicit,  nor  can  higher  authority  be  adduced." 
(1  Calhoun,  353,  359.) 

The  principle  that  the  General  Government  is  the  exclusive 
judge  of  the  extent  of  the  powers  delegated  to  it  stops  nothing 
short  of  despotism — since  the  discretion  of  those  who  adminis- 
ter the  government,  and  not  the  Constitution,  would  be  the 
measure  of  their  power.  The  Kentucky  and  the  Virginia  reso- 
lutions and  Madison's  report  were  promulgated  at  a  time  when 
the  encroachments  of  the  Federal  Government  on  the  rights  re- 
served to  the  States  and  people  threatened  to  break  down 
all  barriers  of  the  Constitution,  in  establishing  by  successive 
precedents  such  a  mode  of  construing  the  instrument  as  to  re- 
move every  restraint  upon  Federal  power.  The  principles, 
in  the  language  of  Jefferson,  "saved  the  Constitution  even  at 
its  last  gasp,"  and  brought  back  the  Government  to  the  purity 
and  simplicity  from  which  it  had  so  widely  departed.  Each 
State  is  as  sovereign  in  the  exercise  of  rights  reserved  in  the 
compact  as  the  General  Government  is  sovereign  within  the 
powers  granted  to  it.  Chief  Justice  Marshall  said:  "In 
America  the  powers  of  sovereignty  are  divided  between  the 
Government  of  the  Union  and  those  of  the  States.  They  are 
each  sovereign  with  respect  to  the  objects  committed  to  it ;  but 
neither  sovereign  with  respect  to  the  objects  committed  to  the 
other.  If  it  be' true  that  the  Constitution  and  laws  made  in 
pursuance  thereof  are  the  supreme  law  of  the  land,  it  is  equally 
true  that  laws  of  the  United  States,  made  not  in  pursuance 
thereof,  cannot  be  the  supreme  laws  of  the  land. 

In  1820-1  the  Legislature  of  Ohio  reaffirmed  the  Virginia 


13 

and  Kentucky  resolutions,  as  the  principles  of  the  majority  of 
the  American  people,  and  adopted  a  report,  rendering  the 
Bank  Act  inoperative,  and  thus  nullified  an  act  of  Congress 
and  ignored  the  authority  of  the  Federal  judiciary. 

The  same  spirit,  which  rendered  nugatory  the  covenant  for 
restoring  fugitives  from  labor,  marked  the  course  of  New  Eng- 
land in  the  war  of  1812,  when  States  and  Governors  nullified 
the  laws  of  Congress,  gave  aid  and  comfort  to  the  enemy  while 
burning  the  Capitol,  and  acted  as  if  they  had  -no  common  duty 
in  protecting  the  flag,  in  resisting  invasion,  in  defending  our 
soil  and  country.  It  may  not  be  unworthy  of  note  that  the 
first  threat  of  disunion  by  Massachusetts  was  while  her  people 
were  engaged  in  the  slave  trade.  The  first  instance  of  rebellion 
by  a  State  against  the  Federal  Government  was  that  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, and  on  the  ground  that  she  was  justified  by  the 
doctrine  of  State  rights  and  State  sovereignty.  In  her  decla- 
rations and  deeds  of  hostility  she  interposed  her  sovereignty  to 
resist  the  authority  of  the  Federal  Government.  Governor 
Strong  said  to  the  Legislature,  "I  was  under  the  same  obliga- 
tion to  maintain  the  rights  of  the  State  as  to  support  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States."  The  Legislature  in  1814  called 
the  State  '"free  and  sovereign,"  declared  the  Constitution  to  be 
a  "national  compact,"  and  said  that  it  was  "  as  much  the  duty 
of  the  State  authorities  to  watch  over  the  rights  reserved  as  of 
the  United  States  to  exercise  the  powers  which  are  delegated, 
and  that  States  which  have  no  common  umpire  must  be  their 
own  judges  and  execute  their  own  decisions." 

III.  Secession. — In  the  election  of  1860,  in  direct  antago- 
nism to  the  opinions  and  covenants  of  the  men  who  achieved 
our  independence  and  framed  the  Constitution  that  made  the 
Union,  it  was  deliberately  decided  that  the  States  could  not 
exist  together  as  slave-holding  and  non-slave-holding,  and  that 
the  "irrepressible  conflict"  between  them  must  go  on  until  the 
"relic  of  barbarism"  should  be  effaced  from   the  Constitution 


h 

and  the  laws.  Governor  Chase,  in  Febuary,  1861,  said  : 
"The  people  of  the  free  States  (who  believe  that  slave-holding 
is  wrong)  cannot  and  will  not  aid  in  the  reclamation  of  fugitives 
from  labor,  and  the  stipulation  in  the  Constitution  becomes 
therefore  a  dead  letter."  The  Southern  States  believed  that  the 
transfer  of  the  government  of  a  common'  country  to  an  execu- 
tive and  to  a  Congress,  elected  upon  the  platform  of  pronounced 
hostility  to  their  institutions,  involved  a  repudiation  of  the  cov- 
enanted faith  of  their  sister  States,  and  released  them  from  all 
obligation  to  bear  the  burden  of  their  own  covenants,  when 
they  were  denied  the  benefits  of  the  corresponding  covenants 
of  the  other  contracting  States.     (1  Calhoun,  323.) 

The  seceding  States  then  openly,  with  the  most  public  de- 
claration of  purpose,  determined  to  withdraw  from  the  com- 
pact and  establish  a  separate  government  for  themselves.  They 
made  no  encroachment  on  their  neighbors,  denied  and  de- 
prived them  of  no  constitutional  rights,  made  no  assault  on 
property  or  institutions,  but  sought  only  to  keep  their  way- 
ward sisters,  as  the  rest  of  mankind,  "  enemies  in  war,  in  peace 
friends."  No  provision  had  been  made  by  them  for  resistance 
to  their  withdrawal  from  the  partnership  ;  not  a  gun  nor  a  dol- 
lar had  been  prepared  for  such  a  contingency.  The  govern- 
ment at  Washington  and  the  Northern  States  were  not 
taken  by  surprise.  Nothing  was  ever  more  deliberate,  more 
calmly  considered,  more  frankly  pre-announced.  What  was 
done  was  not  furtively  done,  but  in  open  day,  and  in  the 
exercise  of  rights  claimed  in  the  convention  which  made  the 
constitution,  by  the  States  in  the  ratification  of  the  instrument, 
and  continuously  from  that  day,  to  the  final  action.  The 
secession  of  a  sovereign  State  was  regarded  as  valid  as  the  act 
by  which  the  same  State  entered  the  Union.  Virginia  and 
New  York,  on  whose  acts  the  fate  of  the  instrument  depended, 
in  ratifying  the  Constitution,  declared  that  the  powers  granted 
by  them  could  be  resumed  when  perverted  to  their  injury   or 


15 

oppression  ;  that  every  power  not  granted  remained  with  them, 
and  at  their  will,  thus  most  carefully  guarding  the  reserved 
powers  against  impairment  and  placing  them  beyond  the  pos- 
sible interference  and  control  of  the  government  of  the  United 
States.  These  ratifications  being  accepted  by  the  other  States 
with  this  construction  of  the  Constitution,  made  the  construc- 
tion as  binding  morally  as  if  it  had  been  inserted  in  the  Constitu- 
tion itself.  Rhode  Island  lingered  until  after  the  inauguration 
of  Washington  and  gave  her  ratification,  without  objection, 
with  the  same  explicit  avowals.  (5  Bureau  of  Rolls,  140, 145, 
191-2,  311.) 

Besides  the  clear  assertion  on  the  part  of  ratifying  States 
of  the  right  to  re-assume  delegated  powers,  a  larger  number 
were  so  apprehensive  and  distrustful  of  Federal  encroachment, 
so  jealous  in  the  maintenance  of  their  respective  rights,  that 
they  attached  bills  of  rights  to  their  assent,  or  proposed  amend- 
ments to  restrict  the  General  Government,  the  incorporation  of 
which  into  the  Constitution  was  earnestly  insisted  upon. 
Massachusetts  proposed  nine;  New  Hampshire,  twelve;  Rhode 
Island,  twenty-one;  New  York,  thirty-three;  Virginia,  twenty; 
North  Carolina,  twenty-six;  South  Carolina,  five.  Every  sug- 
gested amendment  was  a  restraint  of  power,  and  to  guard  the 
liberties  of  the  people;  not  one  intimation  of  a  desire  conferred 
additional  power  on  the  common  Government.  Such  a  thing 
as  the  "omnipotence  of  Parliament,"  the  absorption  of  the 
functions  of  government  by  the  central  head,  seems  not  to 
have  had  a  suggestion.  The  eleven  amendments,  which  were 
soon  adopted,  were  all  along  the  line  of  guarding  against  cen- 
tralized power. 

In  Marbury  v.  Madison,  (1  Cranch,  137-176),  Chief  Justice 
Marshall  said:  "The  powers  of  the  Legislature  are  defined  and 
limited,  and  that  those  limits  may  not  be  mistaken  or  forgotten, 
the  Constitution  is  written.  To  what  purpose  are  powers  limi- 
ted,  and    to   what   purpose   is    that    limitation   committed  to 


16 

writing,  if  these  limits  may  at  any  time  be  passed  by  by  those 
intended  to  be  restrained  ?  The  distinction  between  limited 
and  unlimited  powers  is  abolished  if  these  limits  do  not  con- 
fine the  person  on  whom  they  are  imposed."  "  To  endow  the 
Federal  Government,"  says  Madison  "  with  whatever  it  should 
judge  instrumental  towards  the  general  welfare  would  make 
frivolous  an  enumeration  of  powers." 

Notwithstanding  the  limited  character  of  the  Government, 
early  in  the  administration  of  President  Lincoln,  the  Govern- 
ment put  forth  various  expedients  for  coercing  the  States  into 
submission  to  the  central  power.  The  distinct  proposition, 
delegating  the  power  to  the  Federal  Government  to  coerce  the 
States,  "authorizing  an  exertion  of  the  force  of  the  whole  against 
the  delinquent  states,"  was  formally  submitted  to  the  convention 
and  rejected.  On  May  31,  1787,  Mr.  Madison  said  "an  union 
of  the  States  containing  such  an  ingredient  seemed  to  provide 
for  its  own  destruction.  The  use  of  force  against  the  State 
would  look  more  like  a  declaration  of  war  than  an  infliction 
of  punishment;  and  would  probably  be  considered  by  the 
party  attacked  as  a  dissolution  of  all  previous  compacts  by 
which  it  might  be  bound."     (2  Madison  Papers,  761.) 

The  theory  of  Presidents  Buchanan  and  Lincoln  was,  that 
while  there  was  no  power  to  coerce  a  State  to  remain  in  the 
Union,  it  was  within  the  constitutional  function  of  the  Govern- 
ment to  compel  individual  inhabitants  of  any  State  to  obey 
the  laws  of  the  United  States;  and  this  coercion  could  be 
accomplished  by  all  the  force  necessary  to  remove  all  obstruc- 
tion through  the  exercise  of  the  claimed  power.  (Message,  3 
Dec,  1860.)  In  this  there  were  two  gross  assumptions  which 
have  not  a  resting  place  in  the  history  of  the  formation  of  the 
Government,  or  in  the  grants  of  the  Constitution. 

First.  That  Congress,  or  all,  or  either,  of  the  departments  of 
the  Government  can  decide  ultimately  and  authoritatively 
upon  the  powers  of  the  Government;  upon  the  character  and 


17 

extent  of  the  grants  and  limitations  of  the  Constitution.  This 
assumption  on  the  part  of  the  creature  to  determine  and  de- 
cide upon  the  action  of  the  creators — States — in  the  formation 
and  endowment  of  the  Federal  Government  is  a  claim  of  abso- 
lute sovereignty.  The  right  to  prescribe  the  Constitution, 
coerce  submission  to  it — this  supreme  authority  in  the  last  re- 
sort— is  sovereignty.  Reduced  to  its  real  meaning,  stripped  of 
illusory  verbiage,  this  claim  of  the  Government  at  Washington 
was  identical  with  the  absolutist  pretensions  of  the  Holy  Alli- 
ance. Our  Constitution  is  not  a  mere  temporary  expedient. 
It  exists  in  full  force  until  changed  by  an  explicit  and  authen- 
tic act,  as  prescribed  by  the  instrument,  and  in  its  essential 
features,  is  for  all  time,  for  it  contains  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  all  good  government  of  all  free  representative  insti- 
tutions. 

Secondly.  That  the  General  Government  is  not  only  superior 
to  the  States,  but  has  an  existence,  an  autonomy,  outside,  irre- 
spective of,  contrary  to,  the  States.  The  Union  could  not  exist 
a  day  if  all  of  the  States  were  to  withdraw  their  co-operation. 
The  President,  the  Senate,  and  Representatives,  with  all  their 
powers,  are  conditioned  upon  the  action  of  the  States.  The 
Federal  Government,  the  Union,  as  a  corporate  body  politic, 
does  not'  claim  its  life,  nor  a  single  power,  from  the  people 
apart  from  State  organizations.  In  truth,  and  in  fact,  there  is 
not,  nor  ever  has  been,  such  a  political  entity  as  the  people  of 
the  United  States  in  the  aggregate,  separated  from,  independent 
of,  the  voluntary  or  covenanted  action  of  the  States.  That 
anything  is  constitutional  or  admissible,  simply  because  the 
judiciary,  or  the  Executive,  or  the  Congress,  or  the  moral  con- 
victions of  citizens  approve,  or  the  country  will  be  benefited 
by  it,  is  a  modern  invention  and  has  no  basis  in  our  constitu- 
tional Federal  republic.  To  put  it  in  the  least  objectionable 
form,  the  States,  in  their  undelegated  powers,  are  as  important, 
as  supreme,  as  the  General  Government ;  and  the  theory  of 
2 


18 

State  subjugation  is  a  pure  afterthought  to  justify  arbitrary 
and  ungranted  authority.  It  is  indisputable  that  by  far  the 
greater  part  of  the  topics  of  legislation,  the  whole  vast  range 
of  rights  of  person  and  property — where  the  administration  of 
law  and  justice  come  closest  home  to  the  daily  life  of  the  peo- 
ple— are  exclusively  or  chiefly  within  the  power  of  the  States. 
The  number  of  topics  of  legislation  which  lie  outside  the  pale 
of  national  legislation  greatly  exceeds  the  number  to  which  the 
power  of  State  legislation  does  not  extend.  Madison  said : 
"  The  powers  delegated  to  the  Federal  Government  are  few  and 
defined.  Those  which  remain  to  the  State  governments  are 
numerous  and  indefinite,  and  extend  to  all  the  objects  which, 
in  the  ordinary  course  of  affairs,  concern  the  lives,  liberties,  and 
properties  of  the  people."  (Federalist,  §§  251,  252  ;  Mich.  Lect., 
244;  1  Calhoun,  197,  204,  214,  215.)  If  the  Union  be  indis- 
soluble, with  equal  or  greater  propriety  we  may  affirm  that  the 
States  are  equal  and  indestructible. 

Permit  me  to  refer  here  to  an  opinion  oft  uttered  by  dis- 
nutants  that  the  right  of  a  State  to  secede  was  not  found  in 
the  Constitution  and  was,  therefore,  illegal  and  indefensible. 
No  intelligent  student  of  our  political  system  ever  based  seces- 
sion directly  upon  the  Constitution.  The  claim  was  that  prior 
to  the  Constitution  and  after  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
the  States  were  separately  independent  and  sovereign,  possess- 
ing all  the  powers  of  government  which  were  possessed  by  any 
other  nation.  The  Federal  Government,  or  the  Union,  has 
no  inherent  powers  as  a  government.  All  are  derivative,  pro- 
ceeded from,  were  granted  by  the  States,  and  what  the  States 
did  not  surrender  and  are  not  found  specified  in  the  Constitu- 
tion, or  necessarily  implied  from  the  grants  belong  to  the 
States  without  diminution  or  impairment.  The  right  to  with- 
draw from  the  Union  did  not  depend  on  any  concession  in  the 
Constitution.  If  it  ever  existed,  it  is  because  it  was  not  'pro- 
hibited in  the  Constitution  and  remained   among   reserved 


19 

powers.  It  is  absurd  to  make  the  rights  of  a  State  depend 
upon  an  instrument  of  gift  made  by  that  State.  The  tenth 
amendment  provides  that  powers  not  delegated  nor  prohibited 
remain  in  fullest  measure  in  the  hands  of  the  grantor,  and 
this  was  adopted,  at  the  recommendation  of  several  of  the  con- 
ventions of  the  ratifying  States,  in  order  to  guard  against  mis- 
conceptions of  the  meaning  of  the  Constitution.  (1  Calhoun, 
251.)  Pawle,  of  Philadelphia,  in  a  work  declared  by  Judge 
Story  to  be  high  authority  on  many  questions  of  constitutional 
law,  and  once  used,  as  some  graduates  say,  as  a  text-book  at 
West  Point,  maintained  the  right  of  a  State  to  secede  from  the 
Union.  In  1859,  at  a  convention  in  Cleveland,  0.,  in  which 
Giddings,  Senator  Wade,  Governor  Chase,  ex-Governor  Denni- 
son,  participated,  resolutions  were  adopted,  using  the  langu- 
age and  reaffirming  the  strongest  declaration  of  the  Virginia 
and  Kentucky  resolutions.  In  1861  Wendell  Phillips  said  at 
New  Bedford  :  "  Here  are  a  series  of  States  girdling  the  Gulf 
who  think  their  peculiar  institutions  require  that  they  should 
have  a  separate  government.  They  have  a  right  to  decide 
that  question  without  appealing  to  you  or  to  me."  Horace 
Greeley,  in  the  Tribune,  three  days  after  Mr.  Lincoln's  elec- 
tion, wrote:  "If  the  cotton  States  shall  become  satisfied 
that  they  can  do  better  out  of  the  Union  than  in  it,  we  insist 
on  letting  them  go  in  peace.  The  right  to  secede  may  still 
be  a  revolutionary  one,  but  it  exists  nevertheless.  We  must 
ever  resist  the  right  of  any  State  to  remain  in  the  Union,  and 
nullify  or  defy  the  laws  thereof.  To  withdraw  from  the 
Union  is  quite  another  matter,  and  whenever  a  considerable 
section  of  the  Union  shall  deliberately  resolve  to  go  out  we 
shall  resist  all  coercive  measures  designed  to  keep  it  in.  We 
hope  never  to  live  in  a  republic  whereof  one  section  is  pinned 
to  another  by  bayonets."  Such  declarations  were  persisted  in 
after  the  secession  of  several  States,  and  until  after  Mr.  Lincoln's 
inauguration.     Elsewhere  in  the  "Southern   States  and  the 


20 

American  Union,"  pages  119-128,  it  has  been  shown  by  un- 
questioned authority,  that  from  1795  to  1815,  and  in  1845, 
there  was  an  influential  party  in  New  England  who  favored 
the  formation  of  a  Northern  Confederacy. 

Having  followed  me  in  the  treatment  of  the  assigned  topic, 
may  I  not  crave  equally  patient  attention,  while  I  submit  some 
thoughts  on  our  present  condition,  and  suggest  some  duties  as 
American  citizens,  especially  obligatory  on  us  as  the  amnestied 
survivors  of  the  "Lost  Cause?"  Let  me,  however,  in  advance, 
vindicate  history  from  two  or  three  persistent  misrepresentations. 

The  Southern  States  deprecated  war;  desired  peace;  offered 
negotiations;  had  nothing  to  gain,  everything  to  lose  by  armed 
hostilities,  and  accepted  the  ultima  ratio  regum,  when  forts  in 
harbors  were  occupied  with  bristling  cannon,  and  troops  were 
called  for  to  coerce  into  submission. 

In  this  presence  it  would  be  superflous  to  say  that  to  carry 
on  a  war,  offensive  or  defensive,  for  a  series  of  years,  is  far 
more  than  fighting  a  battle,  winning  victories,  sustaining 
defeats.  Quartermaster,  subsistence,  ordnance,  pay  and  med- 
cal  departments,  are  necessan^  to  meet  the  wants  of  men 
brought  together  in  large  numbers,  for  the  effective  fighting 
power  of  an  army,  "and  the  talent  to  satisfy  these  with  order, 
economy,  intelligence,  forms  the  science  of  administration." 
Troops  must  be  procured,  supplied  with  shelter,  food  and 
clothing,  armed,  transported,  paid,  cared  for  when  sick  or 
wounded,  and  everything  possible  is  to  be  provided  for  their 
strength,  health,  spirit,  effectiveness.  To  make  the  best  possi- 
ble use  of  forces  in  the  field,  after  they  are  raised,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  provide  with  efficient  means  of  transport  and  a  well 
arranged  system  of  supply,  and  these  the  North  had  super- 
abundantly, in  addition  to  her  active  business,  open  ports 
plenty  of  money,  greater  population,  and  an  inexhaustible  and 
available  European  supply  of  men.  Equipment  and  supplies 
were   rarely   hindered   by  lack  of  transportation.     Probably 


21 

among  the  most  marked  features  connected  with  the  supply  of 
the  Federal  armies,  were  the  use  of  the  ocean,  of  railroads  and 
navigable  rivers,  and  the  facility  with  which  depots  could  be  and 
were  changed  so  as  to  be  always  in  touch  with  the  armies  in 
all  their  various  movements.  The  extent  of  the  base  of  opera- 
tions, or  the  portion  of  country  from  which  reinforcements  and 
supplies  could  be  obtained,  gave  the  armies  great  advantage, 
in  selecting  lines  of  invasion  exempt  from  interception  when 
defeated.  Jackson  in  1862  flanked  Pope  and  cut  him  of  from  O^Jr 
the  upper  Potomac,  but  could  not  prevent  him  from  reaching 
Alexandria.  In  1863  when  Grant  was  baffled  on  the  Rapidan, 
he  changed  his  base  as  he  moved  around  successively  to  the 
Pamunkey  and  the  James.  The  country  commanding  a  sea  is 
is  only  limited  as  to  the  amount  of  stores  it  can  transport  by 
the  capacity  of  the  vessels  it  has  at  command.  The  Quarter- 
master Department  had  in  charge  during  the  war,  on  ocean 
and  lakes,  399  vessels,  having  a  gross  tonnage  13,706  tons, 
and  there  were  238  vessels  employed  in  the  lake  and  ocean 
service,  having  a  tonnage  of  165,248  tons,  which  were  owned  by 
the  government.  There  were  119  steamers,  305  barges,  and  109 
coal  dray  age  boats  and  floats  belonging  to  the  United  States  on  the 
Mississippi  river  and  its  tributaries  and  at  Mobile.  Besides 
these,  the  Quartermaster  Department  had  chartered  for  the 
same  waters  1750  steamers  and  other  vessels.  The  theatre  of 
war  was  largely  bounded  by  the  Atlantic  and  Gulf  coasts,  and 
the  supremacy  on  the  water  made  possible  the  capture  of  de- 
sirable points  and  the  Peninsular  campaign.  The  supply  of 
armies  operating  against  Richmond  was  feasible  only  because 
of  the  monopoly  of  the  sea.  Wellington  is  reported  to  have 
said  in  the  Spanish  campaign,  that  an  army  moved  upon  its 
belly.  Food  and  transportation  enter  largely  into  every  military 
campaign.  One  depot  at  Giesboro,  D.  G,  had  a  capacity  of  sup- 
plying 30,000  animals.  During  the  first  nine  months  of  1864 
the  supply  of  horses  by  the  Cavalry  Bureau  averaged  about 


22 

500  per  diem,  and  the  supply  to  Sheridan  during  his  Shenan- 
doah Campaign  was  150  per  day.  In  1862,  125,000  men, 
14,592  animals,  44  batteries  of  artillery,  the  wagons  and  am- 
bulances, pontoon  trains,  and  the  enormous  equipage  required 
for  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  were  transported  in  about  900 
steamers  and  sailing  craft.  During  Grant's  campaign  against 
Richmond  a  large  fleet  was  constantly  employed  in  supplying 
troops  at  various  stations  along  the  coast  from  Chesapeake  to 
New  Orleans.  From  May  1st  to  August  12,  1864,  the  daily 
average  number  of  rations  forwarded  from  Chattanooga  to 
Sherman's  army,  which  numbered  about  105,000  men,  was 
412,000,  more  than  three  rations  for  every  man  that  left  Chat- 
tanooga on  that  campaign.  In  1864  Grant's  wagon  train 
would  have  extended  from  the  Rapidan  to  Richmond  if 
marched  in  single  file  upon  one  road.  (Journal  of  the  Mili- 
tary Service  Institution.     Jan.,  1896,  pp.  45-95.) 

What  a  contrast  to  the  Southern  army,  half  clad,  half  fed, 
half  armed,  without  any  adequate  supply  of  the  needed  trans- 
port, of  the  needed  medical  staff,  of  the  needed  engineers  for 
bridging,  for  telegraph  work  and  other  engineer  duties,  with 
few  depots  of  supply,  and  a  gradually  contracting  area  of  ter- 
ritory shut  off  from  the  sea  by  a  rigorous  blockade.  It  is  a 
notorious  fact  that  our  army  at  various  stages  of  the  war  re- 
lied largely  on  the  captures  from  the  enemy  for  clothing,  food, 
wagons,  ammunition,  guns  and  other  necessary  supplies. 
General  Banks  was  habitually  spoken  of  in  the  Valley  as 
"General  Jackson's  Commissary-General."  For  two  or  more 
years  the  government  levied  a  tax  in  kind,  and  corn,  wheat, 
oats,  bacon,  mules,  &c,  were  supplied  by  this  method.  In  the 
last  years  of  the  war,  a  long  railway  between  Meridian  and 
Richmond,  over  800  miles,  with  dilapidated  equipments,  fur- 
nished the  single  line  of  transportation  for  arnry  and  supplies- 
For  repairs  of  waste  and  loss  in  rails,  locomotives,  and  other 
needful  means,  there  was  hardly  the  pretence  of  establishments, 


23 

and  one  such  line  as  the  Pennsylvania,  or  the  Baltimore  and 
Ohio,  has  to-day  more  ample  and  readier  facilities  and  more 
abundant  resources  than  the  whole  Confederacy  then  possessed. 
General  Gordon,  on  April  22,  1896,  writes  to  me : 
"You  are  quite  right.  Every  expedient  was  resorted  to. 
Officers  were  detailed,  and  men,  when  necessary,  to  catch  fish, 
when  the  season  permitted.  Summoned  all  the  commissaries 
of  my  command,  from  corps  commissaries  to  regimental  com- 
missaries, before  me  and  told  each  that  he  must  send  out  wag- 
ons into  the  country,  into  North  Carolina,  to  get  in  small 
quantities  of  supplies  to  keep  the  men  from  starving.  We 
had  to  take  the  risk  of  getting  wagons  captured,  because  we 
could  not  stand  still.  You  can  describe  the  wagons  of  regi- 
ment, brigade,  division  and  corps,  roaming  over  the  country 
in  the  byways,  &c,  hunting  for  anything  that  would  fill  the 
craving  stomachs  of  the  soldiers.  But  we  depended,  also,  on 
living  off  the  enemy  by  capturing  supplies." 

As  a  result  of  the  military  necessities  of  the  war,  the  ina- 
bility otherwise  to  conquer  the  seceding  States,  even  with  the 
purchased  "  Hessians  "  of  overcrowded  trans- Atlantic  cities, 
slavery  was  abolished  by  a  stroke  of  the  pen,  a  decree  of  the 
Commander-in-Chief.  Of  the  manner  and  haste  of  the  eman- 
cipation, I  say  nothing.  But  I  am  sure  that  I  voice  the  senti- 
ment of  every  Confederate  soldier,  when  I  say,  thank  God,  Af- 
rican slavery  no  longer  exists  in  the  South.  With  emanci- 
pation and  our  surrender  came  the  enfranchisement  of  the 
negroes  and  the  horrors  of  reconstruction.  The  recital  of 
this  history  is  not  germane  to  this  occasion.  There  is  no 
wish  or  purpose  now,  or  at  any  future  time,  to  reverse  the 
decision  of  the  arbitrament  of  war  in  reference  to  slavery  or 
secession.  Both,  by  Federal  and  by  State  action,  have  been 
forever  settled.  We  are  as  jealous  of  the  reputation  of  the 
flag — our  flag — as  the  citizens  of  any  other  section,  and  should 
war  come,  which  may  God  avert !  a  war  not  for  freebooting 
acquisition  of  our  neighbor's  territory,  not  for  the  selfish  greed 
of  men  who  have  sheltered  themselves  under  naturalization  to 


24 

prosecute  schemes  of  rebellion  or  monopolies  in  trade,  not  for 
the  pouring  of  a  black  tide  of  unassimilative  and  undesirable 
material  into  the  mass  of  our  citizenship,  but  for  the  protection 
of  the  rights  and  property  of  any  .true  American,  for  the  vin- 
dication of  National  honor,  then  under  the  leadership  of  our 
Gordon,  our  Lees,  Pettus,  Shelley,  Hoke,  Hampton,  Wheeler, 
and  such  like,  our  bo}7s  will  hew  their  way  as  far  to  the  fore- 
front, into  the  serried  ranks  of  the  country's  foes,  as  heroes 
ever  did  or  dared. 

Since  the  surrender  of  our  armies  there  has  not  been  a  single 
instance,  within  the  limits  of  the  Southern  States,  against  the 
authority  of  the  Government,  although  a  part  of  the  time  the 
people  have  been  without  civil  magistrates  and  writhing  under 
the  cruelest  injustice  and  violence.  There  has  been  no  mani- 
festation of  a  tendency  to  conflict  with  the  national  authority, 
no  purpose  to  disturb  the  terms  of  the  surrender  and  no  aspi- 
rations outside  the  limits  of  the  Union.  The  new  amend- 
ments to  the  Constitution,  coercively  adopted,  are  not  less  in- 
violable and  authoritative  than  the  original  compact  as  ratified 
by  the  States.     (Lamar's  Calhoun,  170-171.) 

In  reaffirming  our  loyalty,  candor  demands  that  we  should 
not  use  ambiguous  phrase.  We  are  far  from  making  a  half- 
hearted apology,  or  interposing  sincerity,  or  honesty  of  belief,' 
as  a  palliation  for  the  Confederacy.  We  rest  our  cause  and 
conduct  on  no  such  humiliation.  Our  property  was  a  guar- 
anteed right,  with  the  privileges  of  all  other  property  and  some 
additional  securities.  In  1861  secession  was  a  reserved  right 
of  the  States,  and  no  proposition  is  logically  and  historically 
more  demonstrable.  It  was  not  an  afterthought,  a  suddenly 
improvised  remedy,  invented  for  the  occasion.  The  right  was 
a  faith  received  from  the  fathers,  an  irresistible  inference  from 
colonial  independence,  from  Articles  of  Confederation,  the  sepa- 
rate action  of  the  States  in  framing  and  ratifying  the  Consti- 
tution, from  the  limitations  in  that  instrument,  from  its  silence, 


25 

from  the  reserved  and  undelegated  powers,  from  repeated  re- 
affirmation in  most  solemn  and  authoritative  form.  Amid 
all  the  perversions  of  history,  scandalous  attacks  upon  motives 
and  actions  of  men  and  parties  and  States,  no  one  has  been 
found  bold  enough,  ignorant  enough,  unscrupulous  enough,  to 
assert  that  the  seceding  States  took  the  Government  by  sur- 
prise, or  adopted  a  course  of  action  which  was  furtive  and  un- 
expected. I  was  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  December* 
1860,  when  the  wires  announced  that  South  Carolina  had  re- 
voked her  ratification  of  the  Constitution  and  resumed  her 
delegated  powers  and  the  control  of  the  paramount  allegiance 
of  her  citizens.  While  some  weak  ones  treated  the  grave  mat- 
ter with  ridicule,  there  was  not  a  Representative;  or  Senator, 
or  an  intelligent  person  in  the  United  States,  who  did  not 
know  that  the  creed  of  State  Rights  and  State  Remedies  had 
been  as  openly  and  freely  and  fully  proclaimed  as  any  other 
political  doctrine. 

Now  this  has  been  entirely  changed.  The  claim  of  the  right 
of  secession  is  abandoned,  having  been  eliminated  from  the 
American  Governments.  The  fourteenth  amendment  has  revo- 
lutionized the  character  of  our  political  system.  That  declares 
that  all  persons  born  within  the  limits  of  the  United  States  are 
citizens.  In  consequence  of  this  constitutional  provision,  one 
is  now  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  and  as  such  must  render 
obedience  to  national  law.  Prior  to  that  amendment,  one  was 
a  citizen  of  the  United  States  only  by  virtue  of  his  citizenship 
in  a  particular  State,  and  primary  and  paramount  allegiance 
was  due  to  that  State.  When  she  spake,  her  voice  was  sove- 
reign, and  to  disobey  was  rebellion  or  treason.  So  thought 
and  said  General  Lee.  When  before  the  Reconstruction  Com- 
mittee at  Washington,  he  was  asked  whether  he  felt  that  he 
had  been  guilty  of  treason,  promptly,  firmly,  and  rightly  he 
answered,  "No,"  because  he  owed  his  allegiance  to  the  State  of 
Virginia  of  which  he  was  a  citizen.     So  thought  Albert  Sidney 


26 

Johnston  when  he  came  from  California  to  place  sword  and 
honor  and  life  at  the  will  of  Texas.  So  thought  Joseph  E. 
Johnston,  Commodore  Maury,  Bishop  Polk,  and  all  our  soldiers 
and  civilians.  Hence  the  men  who  fought  and  the  men  who 
fell,  fought  and  fell  in  a  just  cause.  They,  fell  in  defence  of  the 
Constitution  as  it  came  from  the  hands  of  the  fathers,  in  de- 
fence of  home  rule  and  State  rights.  They  were  not  traitors 
nor  rebels,  but  right  in  adhering  to  the  old  landmarks,  in  re- 
sisting coercion,  conquest,  and  subjugation,  as  we  are  right  now 
in  standing  by  the  amended  Constitution  and  against  the  doc 
trine  of  secession.  When  the  Constitution  declares  that  I  am  a 
citizen  of  the  United  States,  and  that  the  laws  apply  to  me  in- 
dividually, and  that  the  Federal  Government  may  determine 
the  measure  of  its  power  over  the  States  and  the  people,  my 
allegiance  is  due  to  the  Government  of  the  United  States  and 
not  to  Virginia.  The  changed  or  amended  Constitution,  ac- 
cepted by  the  States,  has  consigned  the  doctrine  of  secession  to 
the  tomb  of  the  Capulets,  and  we  have  one  Flag,  one  Constitu- 
tion, one  Union,  one  National  Government,  one  Destiny. 

The  survivors  of  the  Lost  Cause  can  make  good  their  assev- 
erations of  loyalty  to  the  Republic  by  observing  in  strictest 
fidelity  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  Constitution.  It  is  safe  to 
affirm,  for  no  one  will  gainsay,  that  a  dissatisfaction  on  the 
part  of  the  South  with  the  Constitution  as  a  whole,  or  in  any  one  ' 
of  its  parts,  or  with  any  of  the  powers  conferred  on  the  Fede- 
ral Government,  did  not  influence  in  the  remotest  degree  the 
secession  of  the  States.  Individually,  as  a  Southern  man  and 
a  Confederate  soldier,  I  have  felt  that  my  highest  duty  to  my 
section  since  the  struggle  ended,  was  to  restore  fraternit}7'  of 
spirit  as  well  as  political  association.  This  duty  to  the  South, 
and  to  the  Union,  was  best  discharged  by  laboring  for  free, 
universal  education  (for  the  free  school  is  the  corner-stone  of 
any  New  South),  by  devotion  to  the  best  interests  of  the  whole 
country,  by  demonstrating  that  the  interests   of  every  State, 


27 

and  the  honor  of  the  flag,  are  as  safe  in  the  hands  of  a  Con- 
federate as  of  a  Union  soldier,  and  by  a  steady  advocacy  of 
national  issues,  great  and  broad  enough  to  efface  sectionalism. 
The  struggle  against  a  war  tariff,  and  the  Chinese  policy  of 
shutting  off  foreign  markets  for  our  surplus  products,  and  thus 
preventing  reciprocal  amity  between  nations,  was  not  only  a  fight 
for  a  wise  and  true  national  policy,  but  the  use  of  that  question 
served  to  obliterate  geographical  lines  and  to  nationalize  politi- 
cal parties.  Nothing  can  be  greater  folly  than  for  the  South- 
ern people  to  take  up  false  destructive  issues,  assaulting  the 
foundations  of  private  and  public  credit,  weakening  financial 
integrity  and  rectitude,  and  condemning  us  to  an  inferiority 
and  to  less  influence  than  we  have  ever  before  reached. 

The  New  South  is  to  reclaim  and  adopt  the  scheme  of  Jef- 
ferson. Jefferson  and  Calhoun  were  the  most  profound  and 
philosophical  statesmen  of  our  country,  and  Jefferson  outlined 
a  most  comprehensive  scheme  for  Virginia,  including  the  Uni- 
versity, colleges  and  public  schools  under  public  control,  sus- 
tained by  taxation;  and  he  said  that  "A  system  of  general 
instruction,  which  shall  reach  every  description  of  our  citizens 
from  the  richest  to  the  poorest,  as  it  was  the  earliest,  so  it  will 
be  the  latest  of  all  the  public  concerns  in  which  I  shall  permit 
myself  to  take  an  interest."  (Letters  to  J.  C.  Cabell,  Jan.  14, 
1818;  Jan.  13,  1823.)  Whatever  of  prosperity,  of  power,  of 
glory,  the  New  South  may  aspire  to  is  inseparably  connected 
with  the  free  school.  All  other  means  are  vain  if  this  be 
wanting.  If  in  the  future,  judicial  interpretation  and  con- 
gressional usurpation  make  as  many  encroachments  upon  the 
Constitution  as  in  the  last  hundred  years,  then  written  guar- 
antees will  be  impotent  for  protection,  and  our  chief  reliance 
must  be  on  the  intelligence  and  virtue  of  the  people.  The 
South  has  made  an  imperishable  record  of  patriotism  by  what 
she  has  done  for  the  education  of  white  and  of  black  children. 
President  Angell,  of  the  University  Michigan,  frankly  says: 


28 

"  Out  of  the  very  depths  of  a  misery  and  a  poverty,  which  we 
in  the  North  cannot  begin  to  understand,  they  have  taken  up 
these  great  ideas  of  public  education,  and  have  taxed  them- 
selves with  a  generosity  which  we  cannot  but  admire,  for  the 
education  both  of  the  white  and  of  the  black." 

We  can  be  fair  and  do  justice,  and  more  than  justice  to  the 
negroes,  accepting  the  conditions  as  to  citizenship  and  suf- 
frage which  were  imposed  as  punishment  upon  us,  and  to  trans- 
fer civil  and  political  power  from  us  to  them.  We  cannot  live  as 
enemies,  or  we  will  end  in  ruin.  We  should  encourage  trust 
and  confidence  between  the  races.  The  attempt  to  reverse  all 
the  teachings  of  history  and  ethnology  has  reacted  on  the  per- 
petrators of  the  wrong  and  their  allies  and  their  can  be  now  no 
question  as  to  who  will  rule  in  these  Southern  States.  Hap- 
pily for  the  negro,  his  best  friends  are  in  control  of  the  ma- 
chinery of  the  State  governments,  and  history  has  no  parallel 
to  the  magnanimity  and  sacrifices  of  the  impoverished  and 
imperiled  South  in  furnishing  him  "without  money  and  with- 
out price"  the  facilities  of  a  common  school  education.  The 
brutal  lynching,  the  torture  and  the  burning  of  negroes  charged 
with  an  unmentionable  crime,  is  a  stigma  upon  the  white 
race,  upon  Southern  civilization.  Such  swift  and  unnecessary 
punishment  is  wholly  unnecessary,  as  the  fiends  could  not  go 
unwhipped  of  justice,  and  it  reacts  with  terrible  rebound  upon 
those  who  participate  and  approve,  in  brutalizing  conscience 
and  engendering  contempt  for  the  authority  of  law  and  of 
government.     Let  us  be — 

"  Swift-footed  to  uphold  the  right 
And  to  uproot  the  wrong  " 

Distinguished  by  a  homogeneous  population,  by  consistent 
observance  of  laws,  constitution,  and  treaties,  by  strict  non- 
intervention in  foreign  affairs,  and  by  a  most  careful  absti- 
nence from  interference  with  others'  rights  and  property,  let 


29 

us  give  no  counsel  nor  support  to  anarchy,  or  those  theories 
which  result  in  unrestrained  democracy,  which  is  tyranny  in 
its  worst  shape,  showing  no  respect  for  rights  of  property,  or 
personal  liberty,  or  the  guarantees  of  law.  Freedom  consists 
in  keeping  willingly  within  the  limits  traced  by  law  and  order 
and  justice — the  only  securities  for  innocence,  good  govern- 
ment, and  personal  liberty — and  anything  outside  is  not  free- 
dom, but  license  and,  in  the  end,  abject  servitude.  We  must 
resist  that  sophism  which  identifies  liberty  with  the  unchecked 
domination  of  majorities  as  if  "  count  of  heads  was  the  Divine 
Court  of  Appeals  on  every  question  and  interest  of  mankind." 
John  Stuart  Mill  said  wisely,  "  Experience  proves  that  deposi- 
taries of  power,  who  are  mere  delegates  of  the  people,  that  is 
of  a  majority,  are  quite  as  ready  when  they  think  they  can 
count  on  popular  support  as  any  organ  of  oligarchy  to  assume 
arbitrary  power,  and  encroach  unduly  on  the  liberty  of  private 
life."  Moreover,  we  need  no  encouragement  of  trend  to  con- 
solidation by  endowing  national  universities,  by  annexation 
of  territory  with  increase  of  African  or  Hawaian  citizenship, 
by  an  influx  of  heterogeneous  and  immiscible  population,  by 
establishing  remote  provinces  which  would  be  utterty  alien  to 
our  institutions  and  to  representative  government. 

Comrades,  you  and  your  associates  were  noble  in  war  ; 
never  in  human  history  more  patient  endurance,  more  heroic 
deeds,  greater  personal  valor.  Let  us  be  nobler  in  peace. 
What  occurred  in  the  field  and  the  camp  is  not  the  highest 
glory.  You  were  distinguished  for  religion  in  camp,  for  re- 
spect for  civil  authority,  for  temperance,  for  intelligence,  for 
the  most  brillant  military  achievements  ever  wrought  against 
such  odds  and  with  such  scant  and  unequal  means.  When  the 
flag  was  furled,  and  paroles  were  accepted,  you  resumed  agri- 
cultural, mechanical,  mining,  professional  pursuits.  Your 
-country  was  laid  waste,  houseless  chimneys  marked  the  devas- 
tated track  of  the  ruthless  invader.     These  were  material  losses, 


:J0 

but  what  were  they  compared  with  the  decimation  of  families  by 
disease  and  battle,  with  the  privation  of  what  constitutes  the  very 
warp  and  woof  of  being.  The  real  treasure  is  not  in  the 
coffers,  but  in  the  soul.  It  is  that  which  we  are  that  enters 
into  the  sub?tance  of  character.  The  country  was  a  desola- 
tion, every  home  was  a  Bochim  with  sad-eyed  widows  and 
mothers,  with  hearts  no  more  to  be  illumined  with  joy 
Everywhere  were  the  shades  of  theunreturtied  ones,  keeping  sol- 
emn march  to  "Away  down  South  in  Dixie,"  and  holding  in 
fieshless  hands  the  tattered,  bullet-riddled  banners.  There 
were  the  silver-haired,'  with  cheeks  furrowed  by  salt  tears, 
kneeling  crushed  at  the  graves  or  before  the  pictures  of  the 
manly  and  the  brave  who  went  out  with  blessing  and  came 
no  more  home  again. 

"All  who  died  were  not  struck  by  shot  and  shell, 
Some  hearts  grew  still  because  they  loved  so  well." 

There  were  hopes  blasted  and  horizons  blackened  by  reme- 
diless despair.  These  were  bitterer  experiences  than  ever 
came  from  loss  of  earthly  possessions.  It  was  under  such  cir- 
cumstances that  life  was  begun  anew,  and  there  was  never 
such  marvelous  adaptedness  to  the  revolutionized  and  unpre- 
cedented conditions.  All  had  been  lost.  After  the  war  with 
Germany  France  paid  an  indemnity  of  $1,000,000,000.  Our 
loss  in  life  and  in  property  was  greater  than  hers.  Hope  and 
confidence  are  returning.  Our  land  begins  again  to  blossom. 
Churches  and  schools  are  open.  The  complexities  and  diffi- 
culties of  the  severest  problem  ever  encountered  by  civilization 
and  Christianity  are  beginning  to  yield  to  patient  solution. 
With  all  that  is  regretable  in  our  present  condition,  we  still 
have  our  own  local  governments,  what  remains  of  a  glorious 
constitution,  the  inspiration  of  free  institutions,  the  wealth 
of  incalculable  possibilities,  the  stimulating  memories  of 
an    immortal  past,   the    beckoning    impulses  of    an    opening 


31 

future.  We  need  no  discord,  no  nursing  of  the  injustice 
and  the  wounds  of  the  past,  no  prospering  sectional- 
ism, no  separate,  political  existence.  We  need  those  es- 
sential conditions  upon  which  alone  we  can  hope  for 
a  full  share  in  the  councils  and  advantages  of  the  Union. 
"  Let  us  strive  for  a  grand,  mighty,  indivisible  Republic,  throw- 
ing its  loving  arms  around  all  sections,  omnipotent  for  pro- 
tection, powerless  for  oppression,  cursing  none,  blessing  all." 
Our  history  is  not  wound  up.  The  means  of  greatness  are  still 
within  our  grasp.  Let  not  our  heroes  have  died  in  vain.  They 
bequeathed  an  example  of  lofty  patriotism,  they  gave  us  a 
place  on  a  never-dying  battle  roll,  and  the  historian's  pen, 
when  not  dipped  in  the  gall  of  hate,  gives  due  credit  to  super- 
human virtues  of  privates  and  officers.  Nationality  is  com- 
pounded of  many  elements,  and,  with  true  Americans,  we  have 
a  sense  of  community  of  race,  of  religion,  of  interest,  of  lan- 
guage, of  literature,  of  history,  a  single,  political  whole — an 
indissoluble  Union  of  indestructible  States — strong  ties  which 
bind  in  fellowship  and  brotherhood.  As  men  and  citizens  let 
us  so  live,  in  private  and  in  public  station,  that  our  descen- 
dants may  be  as  proud  of  us  as  we  are  of  the  noble  men  and 
nobler  women  of  our  perished  Confederacy.     Noblesse  oblige. 


t  Works  by  the  same  Author.  i 


* 


1.  The  Southern  States  of  the  Ameri=  t 
can  Union,  Considered  in  their  Re-  ? 
lations  to  the  Constitution  of  the  J 
United  States,  and  to  the  Resulting  a 
Union.  B.  F.  Johnson  &  Co.  (Stu-  ^ 
dent's  Edition.)                  $1.00.  # 

2.  Constitutional  Government  in  Spain  P 

— Harper  &  Bro.  $1.00.  \ 

3.  William  Ewart  Gladstone — A  Study  ? 

^  — B.  F.  Johnson  &  Co.       $1.00.  # 

*  5 


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